RFQ needed - electronic boxes and supports

[dantm]

Hi,

I work for a university research lab and we're very often in need of small-size prototype boxes and metal supports for our electronics projects. These are a little beyond of what a generic-sized project box would accomplish but the goal is to keep them manageable in terms of complexity and costs.

As such, I am interested in finding somebody (or a number of people) to help us out -- would any of you be interested in quoting from a design and in that case, what would be the best format? DXF, IGES ,etc?

Many thanks!


/Dan

[dantm]

Here are examples of what I am talking about.

Box 1:











Box 2:

[Dualkit]

For electronics I would assume you would want thin walled sheet metal, but your drawings look like something machined out of solid with thicker walls. What is it, how thick are the walls?

[dantm]

The students designed this thinking it would be milled out of Aluminum; we're not adverse to having it made out of sheet metal but it has to be a relatively nice finish.

Also the side holes that you see are designed to support RF connectors (for telecommunications) so they are tapped 2-56 (on each side) with a center hole that fits the connector.

Do you guys think it would be cheaper and maybe faster to do it out of sheet metal rather than CNC mill it out of Al?


Thanks!



/Dan

[dantm]

One more thing -- first thanks to everybody who showed interest; I will PM responses asap.

The designs you see is what an electronic engineer wants to see; they are in no means final. I.e. we're not looking for square corners, and will make tradeoffs to reduce milling or manufacturing time and hence cost. The goal is to end up with some relatively low cost prototypes, prove them to the company and government sponsoring this research and hopefully move into medium- or high-volume production. When that happens my university would be out of the picture and the manufacturer of the boxes/supports would deal and renegotiate with the industry directly.

So I look forward to suggestions on how to reduce cost(s) on these -- rounded corner radii, metal thickness, etc.

Thanks!

[dantm]

Thanks! Everybody has been replied to in PM or E-mail. I sent out e-mails with drawings in a number of formats (DXF, IGES, STL).

Please e-mail me or PM me with any other interest or if you didn't get a response (I am pretty sure I got everybody who responded).

Many thanks!



/Dan

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[dantm]

Thanks everybody; I've responded to everybody and we're making these right now with one of the members who contacted me here. Once it's all done I will post about the experience.

In the meantime, one of my other students has a second 2-piece project with some interesting features -- I will post that in a separate thread.

Thanks to everybody who responded!!!